As you might guess, it’s not that simple. It has to be the temple, for one thing, built on the previous one. This article has a lot more than I (who am not Jewish) remembered:
It says that the Orthodox would resume sacrifice if the temple were rebuilt. Conservative Judaism promotes the rebuilding of the temple, but not resuming sacrifices. And Reform Judaism is against both, seeing it as a relic of an old system.
And on order to build and sanctify a new temple, a red heifer is needed. So there’s a movement to breed appropriate cattle, so when the time comes, the sacrifice can be performed:
(The first story in the show)
Apparently, there’s now a farm in Israel that has some candidate animals
But why does it have to be THE temple, that particular one? It’s been a while since I was in Sunday School but does the Old Testament really say that the sacrifices have to take place only at that singular location?
I’m pretty sure the rulebook they follow isn’t the Old Testament.
" Sacrifices were stopped after the Temple’s destruction because the Torah specifically commands Jews not to offer sacrifices just anywhere; they are only permitted in the place that G-d has chosen for that purpose. It would be a sin to offer sacrifices in any other location."
From: Sacrifices and Offerings (Karbanot)
It seems like that is from the Old Testament – the Torah is the first five books, I believe. There are probably all kinds of teaching around that as well, but I’m not a Jewish scholar.
The “Torah” definitely contains divine commandments to build proper altars and sacrifice animals (see Exodus ch. 20, Exodus 25, for example), but it does not specify an exact spot or name a city. Also, I’m certain that in Rabbinic Judaism it does not matter so much what it literally says— see someone’s quote above that according to some (but not all!) sects sacrifices, offerings, priests, and temples are all out.
Yeah, me neither, but my grandmother did drag me to church. It seems like a convenient reading…that it is just a coincidence that people don’t want to sacrifice animals anymore, so we just make up this thing that God only wants it done in one single place, but as I type this, I see it is GQ…
Yeah, there are tons of those convenient readings in all religions that I know much about.
It does include commandments to make sacrifices at other places – before the Temple was constructed. After the Temple was built, all sacrifices were centralized, and if you read the historical books (They are called prophets in Jewish bibles, but I’m not sure where they line up in Christian bibles) it’s quite clear that sacrifices were no longer allowed in other places.
It’s by no means a “convenient reading” but quite explicit.
Actually, the stuff I was thinking of in Kings mostly suggests that the offerings in high places were to other gods. I think it is actually preserving a history of the tension between traditional offerings at local holy sites and the temple worship that ultimately won out. But Deuteronomy is quite explicit:
Deuteronomy 12 instructs the Israelites to tear down any sites where the people they conquer worshipped their gods, and then goes on to say:
…But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:
6 And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks:
…
13 Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest:14 But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.
There’s more along the same lines. The Jewish translation (JPS) is a little more explicit that the point of those passages is “YOU MAY ONLY MAKE SACRIFICES AT THE TEMPLE”, but I think it’s clear enough in this (KJV) translation.
Sort of. The high priest had a lot of prestige, and was the top guy in running the Temple as far as special honors and privileges. But he had no decision-making power. His opinions carried the same weight as any other scholar of his education. One might say that the High Priest was Head of State, while it was the rabbis who ran the government.
Slightly off-topic (but the OP did bring it up), but, speaking as a Catholic, I wouldn’t describe the Pope as “intercessory of God [H]imself.”
While Catholics do believe in intercessory prayer (to the dismay of many Protestants), we absolutely do not pray to the Pope for intercession. Nope, nohow, no way, never.
Mary and the saints, though, no problem.
It was the Sanhedrin who made the rules. They were sort of the supreme court of the Jewish state.
Both the Supreme Court and also the Legislature, just to clarify for anyone who likes to see modern-day equivalents.
A Catholic (or even a non-Catholic) can certainly ask the Pope to pray for them. And while the Pope is alive on Earth, they can ask in any of the many ways that any human asks any other human anything: Face to face, over the phone, by a letter, through e-mail, whatever. And that could be called “prayer”, in the original sense of the word.
True enough, I suppose.
For me, there’s a difference between asking somone to pray for someone (me, or anyone else), and praying to a saint to intercede with God on my behalf, which is what I understand intercessory prayer to be.
Yes, a person can ask the Pope to pray for them , in exactly the same way I can ask my cousin or the parishioners present at the 9am Mass to pray for me. But Catholics do not pray (using the current meaning) to the Pope asking him to intercede as they might pray to St. Anthony.
This thread brings to mind Josephus’ highly memorable eye-witness account of the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
Josephus was present there among the staff of Titus Caesar, the Roman commander, and later wrote a vivid description of events.
…
Caesar [Titus] shouted and waved to the combatants to put out the fire; but his shouts were unheard as their ears were deafened by a greater din, and his gesticulations went unheeded amidst the distractions of battle and bloodshed.
As the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command. Crowded together round the entrances many were trampled by their friends, many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated. As they neared the Sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar’s commands and urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands.
The partisans were no longer in a position to help; everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar the heap of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom.
The soldiers were like men possessed and there was no holding them, nor was there any arguing with the fire.
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While the Sanctuary was burning, looting went on right and left, and all who were caught were put to the sword. There was no pity for age, no regard for rank; little children and old men, laymen and priests alike were butchered; every class was held in the iron embrace of war, whether they defended themselves or cried for mercy.
Through the roar of the flames as they swept relentlessly on could be heard the groans of the falling: such were the height of the hill and the vastness of the blazing edifice that the entire city seemed to be on fire, while as for the noise, nothing could be imagined more shattering or more horrifying.
There was the war-cry of the Roman legions as they converged; the yells of the partisans encircled with fire and sword; the panic flight of the people cut off above into the arms of the enemy, and their shrieks as the end approached. The cries from the hill were answered from the crowded streets; and now many who were wasted with hunger and beyond speech found strength to moan and wail when they saw the Sanctuary in flames. Back from Peraea and the mountains round about came the echo in a thunderous bass.
Yet more terrible than the din were the sights that met the eye. The Temple Hill, enveloped in flames from top to bottom, appeared to be boiling up from its very roots; yet the sea of flame was nothing to the ocean of blood, or the companies of killers to the armies of killed: nowhere could the ground be seen between the corpses, and the soldiers climbed over heaps of bodies as they chased the fugitives.
The zealot horde pushed the Romans back, and by a violent struggle burst through into the outer court of the Temple and from there into the City, the few surviving members of the public taking refuge on the outer colonnade.
Some of the priests at first tore up from the Sanctuary the spikes with their lead sockets and threw them at the Romans. Then as they were no better off and the flames were leaping towards them, they retired to the wall, which was twelve feet wide, and stayed there. However, two men of note, in a position either to save their lives by going over to the Romans or to face with the others whatever came their way, threw themselves into the fire and were burnt to ashes with the Sanctuary – Meirus, son of Belgas, and Joseph, son of Dalaeus.
…
Wouldn’t those events as described by Josephus have rendered the Temple impure/unholy?
Very much so. However, it can be reconsecrated, and has been before.